Network analysis of the association between Dark Triad traits and depression symptoms in university students

Dark Traits, Maladaptive Personality, and Depression: Comparative Network Analysis in Psychotherapy Patients vs. Non-clinical Samples

“…This means that Machiavellianism may be generally linked to negative affect, whilst only under specific circumstances to hopelessness. Thus, self-blame and death thoughts/hopelessness, previously indicated a functional mechanism that enables individuals high in Machiavellianism to cope with stress (Giammarco & Vernon, 2015;Li et al, 2024), might act as a sort of behavioural inhibition mechanism that negatively moderates the relationship between Machiavellian manipulative tendencies and aggressive behaviour, ultimately decreasing their risk for paranoid and antisocial pathological outcomes, often associated with the trait (McHoskey, 2001).…”

“…In particular, tendencies to antisocial behaviour, which characterise psychopathy, have been associated with suicide attempts in psychiatric patients (Coid et al, 2009;Swogger et al, 2009). Li et al (2024) investigated the relationship between DT and specific depressive symptoms, finding that both psychopathy and Machiavellianism were positively related to thoughts of death. In addition, these two DT have shown positive correlations with hopelessness (Jonason et al, 2018).…”